Popularity of online banking for individual, personal checking, savings and credit card accounts has grown as banks and other financial institutions have expanded the banking services they provide to their clients from traditional banking operations. With online banking, financial transactions are no longer exclusively effectuated in person at a banking institution's physical locations or branches, and are instead conducted via financial networks, the Internet, or online banking networks offered by banking institutions so that individual account holders (i.e., bank customers) can effectuate transactions via these communications networks. Some online banking systems allow customers to use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) rendered on a variety of platforms, including smart phones, mobile computing devices, tablet computers, personal computers, laptops, and other computing devices, which has led to new avenues of managing personal banking accounts. A major benefit that customers enjoy with online banking, is convenience. This is because more often than not, individual customers using online banking systems and interfaces can easily complete multiple tasks to manage their financial accounts without leaving their homes or workplaces to visit a physical ‘brick and mortar’ branch of their banking institution. Efficiency and convenience are what set online banking apart from traditional banking.
With online banking, customers are able to pay their bills, move, deposit, or withdraw money to another account, reconcile multiple bank accounts, and enjoy related services designed to expedite their bank transactions, even when they are just at home. In a matter of seconds, bank transactions can be completed and the customer can even print his or her receipts for recording purposes. With online banking, various transactions are more efficient and it also saves the valuable time of customers which they can use to do other tasks. Online banking allows customers to enjoy unlimited access to his or her bank account, no matter what the time of day, including holidays and weekends. In addition, accounts can be accessed even if the customer is in another country, as long as there is an Internet connection.
Despite these advances, traditional online banking systems are directed towards individual, personal users and account holders, and not to institutional customers such as business owners and users responsible for managing financial accounts of entities such as organizations and businesses. This is even more apparent in the context of small entities such as small businesses and their managers. For example, in the cases of a small business or sole proprietorship, traditional online banking systems lack interfaces that enable the business owner, proprietor, or manager to view and dynamically adjust the business' projected or unconfirmed cash flow, cash reserve, and react to projected or unconfirmed shortfalls in real time based upon expected incoming and outgoing transactions (i.e., ‘Cash In’ and ‘Cash Out’) for a given future time period (e.g., days, weeks, or months in the future). This is because traditional online banking interfaces for individual user accounts are primarily focused on displaying actual, not unconfirmed, credits and debits and scheduling future recurring electronic transfers and payments, such as utility, mortgage, loan, and credit card payments.
Even if conventional online banking interfaces were adapted to the context of an entity such as small business, they would not enable the owner(s) of the small business to dynamically adjust the business' cash reserve and mitigate unconfirmed shortfalls because of their focus on previously posted debits and credits that have already occurred. For example, interfaces that are limited to displaying historical data such as past accounts receivable and accounts payable activity do not allow a business owner or user associated with an entity to visualize and react to a business' or organization's unconfirmed future monetary positions in a simple fashion. This is because conventional online banking interfaces are primarily focused on historical and current data needed to show past account activity and current account balances. Accordingly, what is needed are technical solutions that present an entity's unconfirmed monetary positions based on predicted cash in (i.e., money in) and cash out (i.e., money out) transactions that can be readily and easily understood by individuals and users without accounting backgrounds or financial management expertise. Accordingly, what is needed are methods and systems that provide GUIs which depict an entity's historical, current, and unconfirmed future monetary positions in a simple fashion that can be readily and easily understood without requiring that users have a financial. For example, there is a need for online banking systems that render GUIs that can be used by users with backgrounds business administration and similar fields to visualize an entity's historical, current, and unconfirmed monetary positions in a simple fashion that can be readily and easily understood.
Interfaces of currently available online banking systems and platforms lack a way for a business owner or institutional user associated with an organization to predict cash flow, potential deficits, cash reserves, and monetary positions based on past, current, and future incoming and outgoing monetary transactions (i.e., accounts receivable and accounts payable payments) in an easily understood fashion.
Accordingly, what is also needed are systems and methods that provide user interfaces that allow business owners and other users responsible for managing financial accounts associated with an entity to predict cash flow and monetary positions based on historical data and future incoming and outgoing monetary transactions (i.e., accounts receivable and accounts payable cash in and cash out transactions). What is further needed are GUIs that display and present hints as to how to remedy potential future deficits (i.e., by adjusting incoming or outgoing payment dates) and view and adjust cash reserves in an easily understood fashion.